Final Pitch Day at LifeTechLab: Five teams, five pitches, and a lot of momentum

How do scientific findings turn into viable startup projects? Answers to this question were provided at LifeTechLab’s Final Pitch Day on May 8 at the ZEISS Innovation Hub Dresden. In front of startup experts and experienced founders, five interdisciplinary teams presented how their business ideas had evolved over the past three months.

Three months of startup development at LifeTechLab

LifeTechLab supports scientists from the life sciences and medicine in transforming their research findings into a business model. The focus is on questions such as: What problem is being solved? Who are the potential users? And how can an innovative idea be turned into a sustainable business model?

© Friederike Gawlik

At the Final Pitch Day, the teams presented their results to a panel of experienced experts for the first time. The event featured startup projects from a wide range of technological fields: Abacus Mind with analog tools for digital boundaries and screen-free routines, ArrAI with AI-supported drug development, CARBOSOL with a process for the permanent conversion of CO₂ into solid carbon, Freed with a breathing trainer based on the principle of progressive muscle relaxation, and MiSAT with technologies for assessing microsurgical skills. The projects demonstrated the broad thematic scope of life sciences and medical research in Dresden.

Pitches, feedback, and new perspectives

After a welcome address by LifeTechLab organizer Iris Steinebrunner, the teams presented their pitches. Following this, they received feedback from various perspectives during moderated feedback sessions: Every eight minutes, the experts rotated among the teams, allowing each startup to gather valuable insights for further developing its idea.

It is precisely this safe environment that makes the format particularly valuable. “One of LifeTechLab’s goals is for the teams to feel secure and simply be able to try something out,” explains Iris Steinebrunner. Some took advantage of this opportunity to test new approaches and further refine their pitches.

© Friederike Gawlik

Once again, the teams were able to draw on the expertise of five experienced feedback providers. Among them were Dr. Anne-Kristin Heninger, co-founder of Seamless Therapeutics; Dr. Eva-Maria Stegemann, founder and startup coach; Dr. Tilman von Strauwitz, innovation scout at the ZEISS Innovation Hub Dresden; Bertram König, Managing Director of Sonovum GmbH and business angel, and Stephanie Randel, startup manager at the SEMECO Future Cluster.

The personalized feedback helped participants further refine their business models and prepare the next steps on the path to creating spin-offs. While the program concludes with the Final Pitch Day, the teams’ work on their startup projects continues.

Learning and moving forward

Natasha Hrycan from MiSAT takes away from the day “very constructive feedback and a clearer roadmap” for “how we can move forward and bring our innovation into the real world.”

For Addin Zaid from CARBOSOL, an important learning effect of the past few months has been bringing science and the market closer together: “The LifeTechLab has above all given us a stronger awareness of the business side. It has helped us find a compromise between our scientific ideals and the path to the market. At the same time, we learned how to explain our idea linguistically in a business context, and not just in purely scientific terms.”

Bring your own idea to LifeTechLab

Anyone working on a startup idea in the life sciences or medicine can already apply for the next round of the LifeTechLab. Applications are open until the end of August, and the program starts in September. The free program supports researchers in further developing their ideas, refining business models, and taking the first steps toward a spin-off.

For more information on LifeTechLab: https://www.dresden-exists.de/lifetechlab